[Ansteorra] Awards and such.

[Marc Carlson]

I’ve been giving this thread some serious though, and so may ramble on here 
for a while.  Pay me no never mind.

I’ve been somewhat silent since I don’t do the SCA for awards.  In fact for 
a long time actively fought getting them at all since in many ways they can 
be an inconvenience for the way I interpret the game, and try to teach (it 
was a lot easier for me to teach that “anyone can do what I do, and it’s not 
just for Thistles/Irises/Laurels” when I didn’t have awards).  But people 
felt that I needed awards and I gave up on fighting that, since it was, at 
the very least crass and ungracious to be tacitly insulting those people who 
were trying to be good to me.

That being said, I have to say that, as much as it violates the example I 
have in myself (not to mention my Swedish programming of “if you are worth 
it, people will recognize that”), I am not the normal case.  People, as a 
rule, don’t normally get Laurels without having made SOME effort to get one 
(yes, yes, I know, I did cool stuff, and people finally chose to recognize 
it since that stuff was in the same general direction as the Laurel, but it 
certainly wasn’t a goal. I got lucky).  For the AoA’s and Grant level 
awards, yes you can fall into those, sometimes, but peerages usually require 
some sort of intent and direction.

There is also the unfortunate reality that not all who deserve awards get 
them.  Some aren’t noticed ever for what they are doing.  Some may well be 
noticed but “aren’t ready yet”, have antagonized the wrong people, or have 
never realized that there is a political angle that can happen.  I know that 
in my case, there are a number of people who I just totally despise.  I 
would like to think that (with one exception) I wouldn’t let that emotion 
interfere with them getting their deserved rewards  [In that one case, I’d 
relay like to think that I could see past my disregard, but I’m not sure I 
can – which is my problem.  Fortunately we live nowhere near one another, so 
the chances of it ever being an issue are somewhat slender].  I do know 
though that there are people who don’t give this stuff this much though, and 
are inclined to just never support people they don’t like (note, I’m not 
criticizing this here, I’m just saying it happenes).  This means that 
sometimes people who should be getting awards won’t, no matter how much they 
deserve them.

This can be very difficult for people who receive their validation 
externally, who need to have that push from the outside.  Again, I’m not 
being critical – it just IS that some people need external validation, some 
people can internally validate, and the majority of us can do some of both.. 
  Even so, as someone who generally can validate myself, based on a “job 
well done”, but y’know, it doesn’t hurt to have someone else pat you on the 
back, and say they noticed that as well.

OTOH even with how I approached awards, and knowing that if you say you 
don’t want them, you have no room for whining if you don’t get them, there 
can be a bitter taste from sitting through yet another watching someone who 
is probably quite deserving getting another effing award you’ll never see; 
so I can imagine how painful it can be for someone who actually CARES that 
they are being ignored or passed over.

Just as a thought to this, the award I have that means the least to me is my 
Army Commendation medal.  I got that at the time I left a particular unit, 
because in that unit, it was SOP to give everyone an ARCCOM when they left.

So, what are these awards anyway?  Is an AoA something to be striven for, or 
simply a notice recognizing something that already exists?  Is it just an 
attaboy, is it a meaningful statement that this person has done something 
significant, or is someone we think needs to be communally acknowledged?  Of 
course, all these questions are just as relevant for every other award.

As much as I’d like to see some standardization of awards and why they are 
given and what they really mean, I don’t think that’s really necessary.  
What I prefer to see is that people get them *meaningfully* though, and not 
as simply “cookies”, or simple rewards for a good job.  Unfortunately that 
opens the door to more subjectivity (and from there the possibility of bad 
politics).

I’m not sure there are any good answers.

Marc/Diarmaid